Two Sides of a Coin
by StarSword-C
Summary: Written for Unofficial Literary Challenge 9: "In Memory of Spock", based on the Foundry mission "The Interwarp Experiment" by AstroRobLA. Captain Kanril Eleya is diverted from a course to join Allied forces in the Delta Quadrant after being personally requested by for a classified mission led by her ex-boyfriend Commander Jerrod Dalton.
1. Chapter 1

**Two Sides of a Coin  
Adapted from Foundry Mission "The Interwarp Experiment" by AstroRobLA**

 _There's some things I should've said  
I was too afraid  
It was just so hard to let you know  
And now it's all too late_

 _What we had was beautiful_  
 _I didn't wanna wreck it all_  
 _Every day, I think about the truth_

 _I wish I was_  
 _I wish I was_  
 _Brave enough to love you_  
 _Brave enough to love you_  
 _I wish I was_  
 _I wish I was_  
 _Brave enough to love you_  
 _Brave enough, brave enough, brave enough to love you_

 _Stripped away the walls I built_  
 _Like no one ever has_  
 _The hardest part is we'll never know_  
 _If we were meant to last_

 _What we had was beautiful_  
 _I didn't wanna wreck it all_  
 _Every day, I think about the truth_

 _I wish I was_  
 _I wish I was_  
 _Brave enough to love you_  
 _Brave enough to love you_  
 _I wish I was_  
 _I wish I was_  
 _Brave enough to love you_  
 _Brave enough, brave enough, brave enough to love you_

 _Brave enough to love you_  
 _Brave enough to love you_  
 _I wish I was_  
 _I wish I was_  
 _Brave enough to love you_  
 _Brave enough, brave enough, brave enough to love you  
_ — "Brave Enough" by Lindsey Stirling, feat. Christina Perri

I materialize in the transporter room of the USS _Destiny_ and a Bolian in a CO's white-on-black snaps to attention. I guess it's because of the gold braid that's been added to my service uniform recently for the Karagite Order of Heroism; I'm pretty sure she has seniority. "Captain Merkell. Permission to come aboard?"

"Granted, Captain Kanril," Traes Merkell assents, and I step off the transporter pad into the _Defiant_ -class escort's cramped interior. "I'm honored to finally meet you," she says, stepping forward to shake my hand.

I gesture to the trio behind me. "My XO, Commander Phohl, my ops officer, Lieutenant Commander Reshek, and my science officer, Commander Riyannis."

" _Sial'alachua_ , Commander," Captain Merkel says to Tess, brushing a hand across her bald blue temple.

"I appreciate the gesture, sir, but wrong greeting," Tess answers with a sardonic smile. "Imperial Andorii isn't my first language—I'm from the Adris Islands, not Lor'Vela Oblast."

"Sorry. I've got several Andorians on my crew and I guessed."

Tess shrugs. "Well, at least you pronounced it right."

"So what's this about?" I ask. "The admiral was pretty tight-lipped: all I got was a destination and a code word, EXCALIBUR MINT GATEWAY, and Starfleet Intelligence wouldn't clear me for the file."

"Sorry about that; Commander Dalton insisted. This experiment's really taking a toll. As you can see the _Destiny_ 's little more than a science experiment at the moment."

"Yeah, I had some questions about… Wait," I stop in mid-sentence. "Dalton? What's his given name?"

"Well, Jerrod Dalton, of course, Captain. Rumor has it the two of you knew each other at the Academy. I infer that's why he requested the _Bajor_ specifically."

I grimace. "Yeah. We knew each other. It's… complicated."

Merkell gives me a rueful grin. "Yes, I've noticed that things are often 'complicated' where Dalton is concerned. Brilliant man, but sometimes brilliance comes at a cost to everyone else."

I grunt in agreement. "Preaching to the choir, Captain Merkell."

She laughs. "Maybe we can trade stories later. Meantime though, we're a little overextended here getting ready for the first field tests."

"Field tests of _what_ , exactly?" Gaarra asks.

"Well, I'm no scientist, but from what I've been told this 'interwarp drive' thingummy is supposed to be a revolution in faster-than-light travel. It's a take-off of a standard warp drive, but instead of producing a warp field only slightly larger than the ship by distorting subspace, it supposedly punches the field into what Dalton calls an 'accessible dimension'."

"I get it," Biri says. Off my look, "Well, it's Shar's Hypothesis—the field is going to snap back into normal space, but with a much greater radius."

"How much greater?" I ask cautiously.

"Well, for our first test, Dalton set a goal of a ten-kilometers diameter. He says he's being conservative." I raise an eyebrow at this and she gives me a look like she can't believe what she's saying. "Yes, he thinks a warp bubble big enough to encompass the entire Fifth Fleet is 'conservative'. And apparently the upper limits could be in the high hundreds of klicks."

"He's right," Biri says with a look of wonder on her face. "If you incorporate Cochrane's Eighth Law and Har'chak's Theorem… Gaunt's hosts, the implications are staggering—you could just move Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards over to Epsilon Eridani in one trip!" She pauses. "He _really_ built this? It's not a mock-up or anything?"

"Well, so his team says. All I know is, I had a junior department head go over my head to Starfleet Science and bull right through a couple parsecs of red tape to volunteer me for this."

Now it's my turn to be sympathetic. "Yeah, that sounds like Dalton."

"So, how _do_ you two know each other? You must've been pretty close if he wanted you specifically, Kanril."

"That's… Can I answer that later after I've had a chance to talk to him?"

"Sure." She points at a door leading aft. "He was in the engine room last I heard. Also, I wonder if you could do me a favor." I gesture for Merkell to continue. "Well, you've got a _Galaxy_ -class starship with full amenities, right? We've pretty much been cooped up in the _Destiny_ for months. If you could loan us some holodeck time—"

"Say no more," Gaarra agrees, and hits his combadge. "Reshek to Ops, have the holodeck schedules cleared for Merkell's crew."

"Many thanks."

We head aft and down the corridor, dodging a rather frazzled Andorian lieutenant who's trying to fix an EPS leak. I hear her grumble something to the effect of "Not again!" as I go past, headed for the aft section of the ship and Main Engineering.

Back in the Academy I did a stint on the USS _Fearless_ , a first-run _Defiant_ -class the Academy uses as a trainer. I know what a _Defiant_ -class engine room is supposed to look like: _anything else_. The warp core is overgrown with extra cylinders and consoles and supply tubing, and steam is hissing from some of the assemblies. The ship's chief engineer, another Andorian, a _chaan_ by the look of his antennae, is standing by the center console. He snaps to attention at my rank. "As you were. I'm looking for Commander Dalton."

"Around back, sir."

"Captain prefers 'ma'am'," Gaarra corrects him, but I'm already moving past. I duck under a low-hanging conduit and catch sight of a blond human in work grays, hunched over a console.

He doesn't seem to have noticed my approach. I tap him on the shoulder and he turns, and I briefly get a glimpse of his eyes widening before my right cross smashes into his jaw. I feel the pop of a bone giving in my ring finger but the sight of him flying backwards, bouncing off his console, and landing in a heap on the floor is worth it.

"Captain!" Tess cries warningly behind me. Somebody else yells, "Security to Main Engineering!" into a combadge as she and Gaarra grab both my arms and haul me backward.

"It's all right, Chief Howard!" Dalton says. "I deserved that."

" _Ye'phekk maktal kosst amojan_ deserves a lot more than that!" I yell in a mix of English and Kendran. "Get off me!" I shake them loose.

"What the _phekk_ was that about?" Gaarra demands.

"The captain and I used to be engaged." He rubs his jaw. "Whoo, you still pack a punch, _sha fe_."

"You do _not_ get to call me _sha fe_ after what you pulled," I snap as he clambers to his feet.

"'Engaged'?" Biri repeats.

"Years ago, at the Academy, before this _asshole_ up and shipped off to the _phekk'ta_ Gamma Quadrant in the middle of the night!" I force my fist to unclench. "You've got a lot of nerve dragging me out here when we're supposed to be in the Delta Quadrant reinforcing Admiral Reynolds."

"Look, I'm older now, and a tad bit wiser if I'm lucky. There's a lot I need to explain, but trust me, this wasn't a frivolous request."

"Oh, you want me to _trust_ you?"

"Well, yes," he says in a slightly sheepish tone. "But I'd rather have that conversation somewhere less public," he adds, eyeing the CHENG. "Can you meet me in the officers' mess in about fifteen minutes? You're going to need to hit sickbay anyway, get your combadge set up as a dosimeter."

That gets my attention. "This contraption of yours is _radioactive_?"

"No," Biri says, "but if I remember the theory right the process does involve triolic waves."

Dalton nods. "The Trill's right. We don't have it powered up right now and the core is pretty heavily shielded, but you never know."

"All right, Dalton, I'll hear you out," I grudgingly agree. "But I reserve the right to break your nose."

Biri laughs. "I think I'll stick around here for a while, talk shop with the crew."

Gaarra's combadge goes off as we head out the door. " _Sir, it's Bellevue. We've got a safety trip in Holodeck Two._ "

"They're trying to mess with the programs _already_?" Gaarra asks in an exasperated tone.

" _Looks like._ "

"All right, I'll be there in a few minutes." Gaarra looks at me with an irritated expression, nose ridges crinkling. I jerk my head in the direction of the transporter and he nods and starts that direction.

Then I feel eyes on the back of my neck. I grab the back of his uniform and pull him back. "Wha—Mmmf!" he manages as I turn him around and kiss him, _hard_ , lightly biting his bottom lip as his beard tickles my chin. I hold onto him for about six seconds then let him go. Tess is staring at me in surprise, one antenna twitching. "What was that about?" Gaarra asks, looking a bit shellshocked.

"To piss off Dalton. Go; I'll see you later."

Tess laughs at this as we head forward, stepping around the crew in the tight confines of the ship. "So, how long had you known each other?" she asks, still snickering.

"About a year. Admiral Ben-David sent him to pick me up when I got to the Academy, then we met in a nightclub a couple months later, had dinner, and things got serious fast."

"And you were going to marry him?"

I make a face. "Yeah, but the engagement wasn't _that_ official yet. We'd done the Rite of Grasses but there's still half a dozen rituals after that, and we hadn't set a date or had any of the banns read, either."

"Heh. You wanted a traditional Bajoran wedding?"

"My parents did. At that time I'd've been happy being married by Commander Falwell on our midshipman cruise. That was just before he left."

We stop in sickbay to get our combadges set up (and me to get my finger fixed). Tess stays outside the officers' mess and strikes up a conversation with the _Destiny_ 's XO, while I steel myself and step inside. Dalton's changed into his service blacks and waves me over to a table where he's replicated some hasperat. "Still can't kick the habit, not since you made it for us that time on spring break."

"Stuff the small talk, Commander."

He half-grimaces. "I guess I deserve that one. You probably have a lot of questions."

"Just the one, really: _Why?_ "

"Yeah. 'Spose that covers it. Why did I leave? Truth is, I left because I didn't want to. I couldn't bear to have you out of my life."

I raise an eyebrow. "Okay, that doesn't make sense."

He laughs. "Yeah, let me try that again. You were… like nobody I ever met. You were a partner and an inspiration; it was getting to the point where I couldn't imagine life without you. But you have to understand, that's not why I joined Starfleet."

I look at him for a moment, trying and failing to read his face. "You're telling me you got scared?"

"Sort of. I was scared that there were things I needed to do that I _wouldn't_ with you around." I unwrap one of the hasperats and wait for him to continue. "You remember I told you how my family moved to Aldebaran when I was twelve, how the liner was hit by the Orions? I'd probably be dead or enslaved if a Starfleet frigate squadron hadn't run off that Syndicate carrier. Three of the four ships were blown away but they saved all our lives."

"Yeah, you told me that's why you joined Starfleet. What's that got to do with—"

"It wasn't just a motivation for me to join. I felt… _feel_ that I owe the Service my family's lives. I joined up to give the Federation everything I could, to be the best I could be. I wanted to do my part to keep other families from suffering disasters that could be avoided." He lets out a breath. "It may sound arrogant but it made me think I might have a destiny to fulfill, something more important than my own happiness. But after I met you I wasn't thinking about that until I got the offer for that deputy science chief gig on the _Planck_. You realize how rare it is they offer that to a cadet?"

"Yeah, so why didn't you tell me about it?" I ask around a mouthful of hasperat.

"Because I turned it down. I didn't want to leave you."

I nearly choke. "What? What the _phekk_ are you talking about, 'turned it down'? You left without saying a word!"

"Well, that night I was going to tell you about it, and that I'd said 'no'. I wanted you to be proud of me. But then when I saw you, I realized I couldn't have both. We'd both know I'd put you ahead of a unique career opportunity. That's selfish, not something to admire. At worst I might've ended up resenting you for it.

"I barely slept that night, and by morning I'd realized I only had one option, so I went back to Admiral Serrikan and asked if the offer was still open. I decided if I just left without a word, it would hurt and you'd hate me, but hopefully you'd get over me."

I rest my face in my hand. "Did it ever occur to you to just _ask_? I probably would've said yes! Prophets, Dalton, I'm a space warfare officer—they had me slated for Gunnery on the _Betazed_! There's no job for me on a research post! It was damned arrogant of you."

"Arrogant? Yeah, probably. Probably selfish, too. But I was afraid that if we talked it out I wouldn't be able to leave, even if you _did_ say yes. There's… there's something almost _elemental_ about you, like… you're like a force of nature and everyone around you just gets pulled along for the ride." He shakes his head. "I mean, don't get me wrong, it's sexy as hell, but it's also kinda scary. I dunno, I'm not trying to excuse myself, and I'm not asking for your forgiveness, but maybe it counts as an explanation? And hell, look at you now. Jay-gee to full-bird captain in two years, and _how_ many medals, again? And your ship's becoming a bit of a legend in its own right. I'm happy for you."

I accept the compliment without comment. "All right. So why did you bring me out here?" He looks around the room, then pulls something out of his pocket and attaches it to the underside of the table. The sound of the ship rapidly dulls. "An anti-snoop?"

"Can't risk being overheard. That's why I needed you. I needed someone I trusted _completely_. There's been some glitches with the interwarp experiments. Nothing major, yet, but it's got my hackles up. This technology could change the face of the galaxy if it works, and I think somebody's tampering with it."

I raise my eyebrows. "Wow. I've gone from discarded lover to trusted confidant in the space of four minutes. My head is _spinning_."

"Do you really have to be sarcastic? This is serious. You see, nobody really knows where this tech could go. I've been telling everyone we're at least a week away from the first test, but I was stalling so you could get here."

"And you were stalling because…?"

"Because if enough people think we've got days to go, I think I can maybe derail any interference if we suddenly move it up to tomorrow. Also means we've got a big reserve of crew on hand that I _know_ haven't been compromised, and, well, it's a _Galaxy_ -class starship." He exhales again. "Maybe I'm getting paranoid but there's too much at stake here. This isn't just about warp fields and moving ships. If my math is even close to right, for all practical purposes there _is_ no hard mathematical limit to how big a field you can make—someday we could be moving _stars_."

My mouth drops open. " _Sher hahr kosst,_ " I breathe.

"Yeah, so you can see why somebody might want to steal it or shut us down. Then again, if I _am_ being paranoid, I'm glad it got me to finally tell you all this."

"Well, Dalton, I'm still angry at you. But I'm in."

He slumps back in his chair, visibly relieved. We just sit there eating hasperat for a while, not talking. Finally he says, "So, you and your ops chief?"

"Mmm? Gaarra?" I nod, brushing a stray strand of hair behind my ear. "Yeah. Funny, Gaarra and I met in sort of the same way you and I did. Picked him up at Quark's on DS9, next day I walk into my ready room and he's reporting for duty."

He laughs. "He a good guy?"

"Very."

"I'm glad."

Then my combadge chirps. "Dammit." I put down the hasperat and slap the badge. "Kanril, go."

"Tess here. Hope I'm not interrupting, but Master Chief Wiggin just picked up a blip of a radiation signature out in the asteroid field. Definite triolic wave signature."

I glance over to Jerrod; he shakes his head. "We haven't done any tests out there and triolic radiation doesn't occur naturally."

" _Phekk._ All right, we'll go check it out."

 **END OF PART ONE**


	2. Chapter 2

**Two Sides of a Coin, Part II**

 _Why did I waste my time?  
Two steps, I don't rewind  
Feeling I can't define  
I give back to you_

 _Give it all away, take it all away_  
 _Give it all away, take it all away_

 _I see my demise_  
 _From behind your eyes_  
 _I can't pass you by_  
 _I put back to you_

 _Give it all away, take it all away_  
 _Give it all away, take it all away_  
 _Give it all away, take it all away_  
 _Give it all away, take it all away_

 _Between love, between hate_  
 _Shake the silence back but it's too late_  
 _And it haunts you, and it haunts you_  
 _It's a love hate heartbreak_

 _This could be suicide_  
 _A kiss with these red knives_  
 _Why am I driving blind?_  
 _I give back to you_

 _Give it all away, take it all away_  
 _Give it all away, take it all away_

 _Try on one for size_  
 _I thought boys don't cry_  
 _You're my perfect lie_  
 _I give back to you_

 _Give it all away, take it all away_  
 _Give it all away, take it all away_  
 _Give it all away, take it all away_  
 _Give it all away, take it all away_

 _Between love, between hate_  
 _Shake the silence back but it's too late_  
 _And it haunts you, and it haunts you_  
 _It's a love hate heartbreak_

 _Between love between hate_  
 _Shake the silence back but it's too late_  
 _And it haunts you, and it haunts you_  
 _It's a love hate heartbreak_

 _Between love between hate_  
 _Shake the silence back but it's too late_  
 _And it haunts you, and it haunts you_  
 _It's a love hate heartbreak_

 _Between love between hate_  
 _Shake the silence back but it's too late_  
 _And it haunts you, and it haunts you_  
 _It's a love hate heartbreak_

 _Give it all away, take it all away_  
 _Give it all away, take it all away  
_ — "Love/Hate Heartbreak" by Halestorm

"Captain, something's seriously wrong," Wiggin says without preamble as Biri and I make the bridge. "We've picked up a series of triolic wave pulses, and they're getting stronger."

"Well, Dalton says it's not his doing. Maybe the Devidians are playing games again, but in any case we can't afford to take chances. Triangulate the source and patch it to the helm." I hit my combadge. "All hands, this is the captain. Sound yellow alert."

" _Destiny_ 's hailing us, ma'am!" Esplin announces.

"Onscreen."

Captain Merkell looks more worried than before, and I can see crewmen running around frantically in the background. " _Things are going nuts over here, Kanril. We thought we had a rad leak but the source is external._ "

"I know, Merkell. Patch Main Engineering in."

Jerrod appears on split-screen. " _El, there is something_ really _wrong here. All the diagnostics are going nuts, giving readings that don't make sense. I can't tell if this is a major system failure or…_ " He trails off but I know what he's thinking: they've been compromised. " _Get to the source and try and see what's going on. I'll work on the safety interlocks down here._ "

"You got it. Park, let's move!"

As the impulse drive engages there's a bright red flare from the _Destiny_. Wiggin mutters, "What… the… _fuck_?"

"Yes? 'What the fuck' bad? 'What the fuck' good?"

"You tell me, ma'am. I can't see Movarish III on sensors anymore, or even its sun!"

"Run that by me again?" Tess says.

Wiggin and Biri frantically hammer at their consoles. "No good," she hollers. "There are massive subspace shear waves all around us. It's like we've gone to warp, and we've taken the whole asteroid field with us!" Then the Trill gasps. "Gaunt's… forty… hosts. The interwarp drive. It _works_."

"Well, how the frak do we shut it down?!" Tess snaps.

Dalton's voice comes through the comm, distorted by static. " _…_ _overrides are shot to hell; can't control the triolic injection… won't disengage until you cut off… at the source…_ "

"I've lost the signal!" Esplin cries.

"He told us enough! Park, full impulse!"

The _Bajor_ barrels into the asteroid field, ducking around whirling boulders ranging from groundcar-size on up to city-busters the size of office parks. Smaller rocks and gravel spark harmlessly off our navigational shields as we close on a planet-killer seventy klicks across at the center of the formation. "So, what are we looking at?" I ask Wiggin. "Besides a big rock, I mean."

"I'm not sure. Sensors say there's something going on but I can't tell what. Wait. This interference… looks artificial somehow."

Biri says, "I've got an idea. If we get close to that thing we can fire a full-spectrum particle pulse to try and dissipate the interference and get a clear scan. It'd take computer timing but—"

"Do it!" I order her. She hammers out a few lines of code and hits the trigger. There's a thrum of power through the ship's hull but nothing happens.

Then, as I stare out into the blackness, I see something. A ripple in the dark.

Prophets. "Shields up! Go evasive!"

Tess's hands race across her board as the dark green prow of a warship bites a hole in reality ahead of us. The bow mount glows a sickly green as Park throws us hard to starboard and a supercharged disruptor lance snaps out and skitters across the port shields. Tess got them up in the nick of time but the lights briefly dim. "Romulans!" Tess barks.

"Battle stations!" I hammer my hand against the key for the general quarters alarm. "Tess, damage report!"

"Port shields at eighty-four percent; returning fire! Master Chief, identify!"

"His IFF's off but I've got a match on optical," Wiggin calls over the howl of the red alert klaxon as the port phasers return the ambush with interest. " _D'deridex_ -class, ChR 20336, IRW _Javelin_. She's Tal Shiar!"

Registry 20336. Fourth production run, built for the Dominion War. One of the few ships in the known galaxy that can potentially take the _Bajor_ in a head-on fight. "Esplin, send him a canned 'surrender or die'. Park, continue turn! Tess, aft battery!"

"Ready on aft battery. Rear torpedo loaded."

"Well, that was rude," Esplin comments, presumably about the response to our hail.

As the oncoming warbird passes into our rear arc, still firing, Tess slams her hand down on her console and a spread of quantum torpedoes shrieks out of the chase tube. "All power to aft phasers. Locked and firing!" Quadruple beams snap out from the arrays on the stardrive, nacelles, and saucer, smashing into the _Javelin_ head-on. The first torpedo goes wide and the second is swatted by a disruptor mount, but the following trio pound one, two, three, into the forward shields. Tess fires the phasers again and batters them down as the _D'deridex_ 's impulse engines flare; it struggles to turn and interpose fresh shields.

"Tess, take a headshot!"

"Firing!" Another lance of nadions snaps out and slips in just under the edge of the shield hole, carving into the warbird's "head" and blowing a gash through several decks. Debris and bodies belch out of the hole and the ship keeps turning, out of control, and careens into the surface of the asteroid. Its bow, already wreathed in flames, crumples like a drink can hit with a sledgehammer, then the singularity core blows and begins eating everything nearby, starting with what's left of the wreck. The bridge breaks out in cheers and I nod in grim satisfaction.

"Captain," Wiggin calls over the noise, "I've got a small task force heading in. Read three _T'varo_ , one _Mogai_ -class."

"Park, take us after them. Biri, did you get anything?"

"Yeah, in addition to collapsing the cloak on that warbird the particle burst unmasked what looks like a small underground installation on that rock. Probably not going to be a problem anymore, what with that loose drive singularity. Ugh." She shakes her head. "How'd you know that shot would work?"

"Educated guess. Pointy-ears follow some of the same doctrines we do—you can regain control from the engineering section if you shoot out the bridge, but that's not meant to be easy 'cause they're more worried about sabotage than running into something while they get control back."

"Kind of a gamble," Gaarra remarks from the ops console.

"Hey, it worked. And if it hadn't, we could've beaten him the old-fashioned way."

That's what I tell him, but I'm still trying to get my heart-rate down. Rommies sure keep you on your toes…

The _Bajor_ barrels after a trio of _T'varo_ -class light warbirds. They see us coming, of course—ship this big is hard to hide—and frantically fan out. Tess fires and skewers the port-most one dead center, its shields nearly useless against the full power of the forward phasers. The tiny frigate swiftly crumples into its own drive singularity, which then decomposes and detonates. "I lost number three—he cloaked!" Wiggin calls.

"Hard to starboard, forty degree up!" I order. "Reduce speed one-third!" Park fires the side jets and the ship slews right and pitches relative up.

"Locked! Firing!" A volley of phaser fire snaps out from the dorsal arrays at the dancing ship, but a flash erupts at its position. Singularity jump, I realize as the little warbird reappears on the far side of a tumbling rock bigger than us, spins like a top, and comes at us guns blazing.

Then the missing one slices back into reality and hammers our still-recharging port shield with a volley of plasma torpedoes; the impact of the big red one sets the lights flickering. "Shields at sixty and falling!" Gaarra reports. "Diverting engine power!"

" _Mogai_ heavy warbird, coming at our two o'clock low!" Wiggin adds as the broad-winged ship screams in. "ChR 25327, IRW _Esemar_!"

 _Phekk_ this. I jump up and throw an ops petty officer out of my way to get at his console. "Sorry," I mumble to him as Tess swats one of the frigates with a glancing hit that pulverizes its starboard nacelle, and start keying commands.

There. Tractor beam. I lock onto the other light warbird and seize it in a death grip, redirecting its momentum and sending it for a tumble right up the larger warbird's nose.

Well, close enough for government work, anyway. The _Esemar_ almost banks away in time and instead of smashing them both to powder the the _T'varo_ takes off half the starboard wing and disintegrates. A spread of quantum torpedoes finishes her, and lifeboats begin to pop from the blazing wreckage.

"Bean ball, take your base," I comment. Tess turns to me with an eyebrow raised. I shrug and help the petty officer back up. "Esplin, get me _Destiny_ , please."

"One moment, ma'am." Esplin taps at her console. "Uh-oh."

"Oh, what _now_?"

"Ma'am, they've been boarded, probably by _Esemar_. Captain Merkell's got the bridge locked down but needs help clearing the rest of the ship."

" _Phekk_." Pretty easy to outnumber the crew on a tacscort. I hit the intercom. "All hands, this is the captain. Scramble assault unit!"

* * *

"Frag out!" I yell, tossing a grenade around a corner. The blast is thunderous in the confined space and I'm thankful for my helmet dampening the noise. I extend the fiber-optic camera on my wristguard around the corner. It's spattered with green blood and a cluster of bodies lies unmoving.

"They were trying to break into Captain Merkell's ready room," Kate McMillan says from across the hall, where she took cover after the Romulans pinned her down.

"All right, go, I'll cover you."

McMillan and Athezra move up as I swing my rifle around the corner and cover it; Crewman Minassian and Security Officer zh'Planathalian head down the hall and lay a frag mine to cover our backs. "It's locked, ma'am!"

"Merkell, Kanril," I radio as I take up a position behind them, "I need you to override the lock on your quarters, otherwise I'm going to have to breach. Give me a five-count when you've got it."

" _Stand by. Five, four, three, two, one, mark!_ "

The door slides open and Athezra throws in a flashbang. My visor polarizes and blocks the flash. I hear some swearing in Romulan as I storm in. A pointy-ear officer loopily goes for his pistol but can't bring it to bear before I bullrush him to the ground.

"Captain, look out!" A disruptor blast hits my side; I'm thrown off the male and bang my helmet against the bunk. Athezra's pulsewave phaser howls and a female flies into the wall with a fist-sized hole through her breastplate, landing in a heap on the floor. She groans once and expires. "You hit, Captain?"

I crane my neck to inspect the damage. "Nah, didn't penetrate. _Phekk_ , how did I not see her?"

"She was behind the desk when we breached. Yours still alive?"

I glance at the insensate male centurion. "Alive, but probably no use to anyone for a while." I pat him down and find a boot knife, then zip-cuff him to Merkell's bedframe for later.

"Ma'am," zh'Planathalian says, gesturing at the screen on the desk. I come over to her. "Looks like they were using Captain Merkell's terminal, looking at personnel records in Science and Engineering."

"Interesting," I murmur, recalling Dalton's suspicions. "What else?"

The Andorian clicks through two more screens. "Look, it's the interwarp modifications, these are classified files. They knew exactly which ones to retrieve, but I think we stopped them before they could download the data."

" _Captain, Tess!_ " my radio suddenly crackles. " _There's another warbird closing in!_ "

"Prophets, they must've had a whole fleet out there. Tess, I've already taken two hits to my armor. Head out and intercept, try and keep them from landing any more boarders."

" _We're on our way. Be advised, it will take us out of communications range._ "

"Walk with the Prophets, Tess." I look to the others. "We've gotta get down to Main Engineering and I don't trust the turbolifts." I radio the bridge again. "Merkell, I'm going to need your access codes and the location of the nearest Jefferies tube."

A ladder down, I kick open the access grate and emerge next to a Romulan. My rifle's slung over my back but I pull my bayonet and open a second mouth on his throat before he can do anything, spraying me with bright green arterial blood. Disgusted, I wipe my gauntlets off on his shirt and turn to a ship status display. "Looks like the security force fields are up all over the deck."

I open a door to head down the corridor to starboard and run right into a fire. " _Phekk!_ " Lucky for my armor or else I'd have no eyebrows left.

"Why aren't the fire suppression systems running?!" Athezra shouts as I backpedal.

"Sensor must be knocked out!" I quickly key the manual controls and foam sprays out of the ceiling and walls. "All right, watch yourselves."

"God, I hate this stuff," McMillan grumbles as our boots swish and squish through the foam.

We come to a corner and I raise my wrist-camera, then retract it and turn my head. _One, group,_ I hand-signal. _Two by two. Three, two, one._ I turn the corner and crack off an unaimed burst on the run. The Romulans are ready this time: several disruptor bolts fly past me, one grazing my right pauldron as I duck into a doorway. Zh'Planathalian tries to follow but takes one in the head and crashes sideways missing half her face. _Phekk._

Athezra fires two blasts down the hall from the corner as McMillan hides behind his breach-grade heavy armor, shooting around him. Zasrassi dives across to my position and makes it. I fire again and an officer screeches and goes down.

"Zass, cover fire!" I order. "Thez, on me! Move!"

The Caitian crouches and flicks her rifle to full auto as I charge, hoping the GUNGNIR II hardsuit's battered breastplate will hold up. Two bolts shatter on my midsection, another hits my groin guard as I make the next doorway. Behind me I hear McMillan yell, "Goddammit!" as Athezra nails two Romulans at once with his gun. One more pokes his head over their barricade and I put a burst into his belly. Zasrassi fires again, aimed this time, and the last one goes down.

"Clear!" I yell. "McMillan, you all right?"

"Sweet mother of holy _fuck_ , asswipe hobgoblin shot my goddamn _leg_!"

I turn to check on her. She's on the floor with a big hole through the kneeguard of her Interceptor armor, but for some reason she doesn't seem to be in much pain and her vitals read as good on my HUD. Then it hits me. "Wait a minute, Lieutenant, is that your—"

She starts laughing. "Yeah, he shot my goddamn _fake_ leg!" Zasrassi and Athezra and I all start cracking up, blame stress. "Well, heh, I guess I can't, heh, follow you any further, not until I take it to the shop."

A blinkenlight in my HUD catches my eye. " _Ahem_ , rad levels are increasing anyway, you probably shouldn't," I answer. "Zasrassi—"

"I'll stay with her," the Caitian agrees.

"You said 'radiation', ma'am?" Athrezra asks, checking for a pulse on zh'Planathalian I already know won't be found.

"Probably triolic. Medkit in my backpack, get the radvax." I trigger the med dispenser in my suit and wince at the sting.

I start to continue into Main Engineering but a pointy-ear subcommander with a nasty phaser wound on her left flank groans. I spin and level my phaser at her head. " _Ve hwi yhfev, lloi'dhohh hwi arhem._ "

" _Urru Areinneye, susse-thrai Bah'jor._ " She spits on my breastplate as I kneel down next to her to check for weapons. " _Oi ihhaonn'hrhae'edh hwai rayha._ "

Okay, that second one stings a bit. "Athezra, see to her. _Docgae-d'ifv hwi fvah vr'..._ ". I pause to think up a translation. " _... vr'aethl'avaihh'etrehhevha?_ "

She manages a smirk despite clearly being in a lot of pain. " _Mnean docgaen aeu aei temmnuei haeinha thaihnhas dhenovher Rihan mhastev Temehludet._ " She coughs again. The spittle on her hand is tinged with coppery green blood. " _Oi docgaen llillaa mnean aeu payr kroiha hrian._ "

"Captain?" Athezra prompts.

"She thinks Dalton's project is a threat to their national security." Which if Dalton's right, it probably is, but I maintain my poker face.

"Nice," he grumbles. "Don't suppose she knows how to turn the _phekk'ta_ thing off."

She starts to laugh at the question but it quickly turns to another coughing fit. Athezra jabs her in the neck with a hypospray, probably an anesthetic. " _Sehhaekhe ssuy venireal hraen._ " She chuckles again. " _Nihroikhe arhem aihkh tlhojur, susse-thrai._ "

I slap her. The servos in my armor split her lip and work her jaw around. " _Dhroi ehlrh!_ " But she just glares sullenly at me and I know I'm wasting my breath. Maybe if I had two months and a hole to dump her in until she started howling at the moons, but she's too stubborn and too principled to get anything useful here, so I just zip-cuff her hands to her legs. "McMillan, Zass, can you—"

"She won't go anywhere," McMillan promises, laying her phaser across her bad knee with the emitter leveled threateningly at the wounded Romulan, who sticks her tongue out at the human.

I turn a corner and I'm there: Main Engineering. Commander Shrel sees me waving and quickly lowers the forcefield. "I'm hoping this means you've dealt with those boarding parties!"

"Yes," I yell back over the noise. "Now how do we shut this _phekk'ta_ thing off?!"

"I've been trying to figure that out the whole time but this frakking radiation is destabilizing the crystals! Go help Dalton in the back! I haven't had a chance to talk to him, been too busy trying to stop a core breach! He got hit but he might know how to SCRAM this thing!"

Jerrod is in a corner out of the way. I reach around for the medpac attached to my waist, eyeing the third-degree disruptor burn on his upper thigh. "Eleya, back so soon?" he asks, coughing. "Can't stay away from me, can you?" He eyes his machine as I open up the pack. "Isn't this beautiful?"

"You can flatter yourself later," I grumble. "You're not allergic to metorapan, right?" He shakes his head and I grab an ampoule. "What the _phekk_ happened in here, anyway?"

He winces as I jam the hypospray into his neck. "Well, after you went out to investigate the radiation pulses, our readings went off the scale in here. I think the Romulans were focusing a coherent triolic wave beam on us… It must have been intentional. Then something blew out near me and I hit the floor. I'm not sure exactly what happened next but the interwarp drive was already engaged when"—he coughs again—"when I got up."

"Who activated it? Oh, damn," I add, reading the rad levels off my HUD. Radvax, where's the damn radvax…

"I don't know. It could have been due to an overload induced by the radiation pulse, or maybe someone tripped a switch. Before I could get to a console the Romulans stormed the place. I think Shrel managed to toss up a bunch of forcefields to isolate the rest of them, but one squad still got in here." He coughs again, but not as hard this time, the metorapan must be having an effect. "Seemed a lot more interested in the warp core than us. They killed Petty Officer Rehnquist"—he indicates a dead redshirt tucked against the back wall—"and I got blasted. I was sure I was dead but I think they were trying to keep the rest of us alive. I heard them talking."

"Yeah, I had a nice chat with one in the next compartment. They want your little project."

He nods. "And they're flying us right into Romulan space to get it."

Oh, of course. "Starfleet's gotta have noticed by now, they'll send a fleet—"

"No, I… I don't think help is coming," he says as I start rubbing burn cream into his wound. "It's possible they can't detect us at all—OW!"

That last part was me accidentally squeezing his leg in shock. " _What?_ What the _phekk_ are you talking about? This warp field is _twelve_ _hundred_ _klicks across!_ "

He laughs ruefully, which quickly morphs into a hacking cough. "I told you I was keeping some things to myself, especially since I started getting suspicious. There is a theoretical consequence of… of expanding a warp bubble through an accessible dimension. I calculated it might—"

I grab his shoulder. "Would you spit it out already?! I don't have time for all your technobabble!"

"The math suggested that the warp bubble could end up slightly out of phase when it formed. It's possible that would mask its warp signature almost entirely."

I just sit there with my mouth hanging open, then finally cast my eyes to the ceiling. "Right! Because the Prophets just _couldn't_ be done _phekk'sha mab sor'ah_! You _phekk'ta_ built a giant, _**invisible**_ _phekk'ta_ warp drive!?"

"I didn't know for sure, damn it!" he shouts at me, then is reduced to another coughing fit. Finally, he explains, "The math wasn't exact, El, any number of real-world conditions could've factored in. I needed to test it to see what would happen… before I knew. But that means we have to shut it down, and fast, or we could end up on the other side of the quadrant before anyone realizes we're missing."

"Oh, right, this thing is also slipstream-fast, because of course it is." I press my gloved hand to my visor. "All right, how the _phekk_ do we turn it off?"

"I tried… The triolic induction that flooded the chamber seems to have set up some kind of positive feedback loop. I'm not really sure where the energy is coming from, maybe the zero-point field, but right now it's self-sustaining. It's almost like they engineered it this way. How could they possibly know…?"

"Dalton!" I tap his forehead. "Focus!"

"Well, maybe… Okay, try this. If you disengage all of the safety interlocks at the main console, maybe we can just blow out the triolic induction module."

"Won't go boom, will it?"

"At this point, I'll take my chances." He probably has a point. "First, you'll need to dump every bit of power you can into the thing, next set up a resonant pulse in the regulator console. And then stand back."

"All right, this is gonna hurt." I finish bandaging his leg and hoist him into my arms, ignoring his screech of pain, then move to carry him out the door and down to my assault team, ordering Shrel to evacuate the section as I go.

"Carrying me over the threshold?"

"Shut up, I'm not finished with you. You stay alive, you damn fool."

"Okay… Don't want to spoil… our reunion… later…"

He goes limp as I hand him off to Athezra, who just looks up at me and says, "Go, Captain."

I run back in and override the console, telling the safety systems to go _phekk_ themselves. Every spare joule I can find on the ship goes into the triolic induction module: life support, weapons, emergency force fields—BANG! I drop flat just in time as a fireball washes over the console.

Suddenly all is quiet. Commander Shrel peeks back around the door. "You got it?"

"I don't know." I trigger my suit radio. "Mama Bear to _Bajor_ , you hear me okay?"

" _Loud and clear,_ " Tess sends back. " _The interwarp field just collapsed all at once. We destroyed two more warbirds and disabled a third; remaining bogeys are bugging out. Shall I pursue?_ "

"Negative, negative. Tractor your prisoner and get back here, we need medical yesterday."

" _On our way. Out._ "

* * *

"How is he, Warragul?"

The doctor's dark face is grim. "He's dying."

I look at him in disbelief. "He had a _disruptor burn_ on his _leg_! I've gotten hurt worse—"

"Cap'n, he has massive radiation poisoning," he explains quietly. "Everyone on that ship near Engineering does but not as bad as him. You and the boarding party weren't there long enough, you only took about two-and-a-half grays of triolic radiation and that MACO suit of yours stopped most of it. He absorbed somewhere north of _forty_. He must've been too close to something. And he's deteriorating too fast. I'm good but I'm no miracle worker."

" _Phekk_ that, there's got to be _something_ you can do! You can bring people back from _brain-death_ but you can't—"

"No, I've _done_ everything I can, Cap'n! I've decontaminated him externally and I've got him half-blasted out of his mind on painkillers and nausea and seizure meds. That's all I can do, is make him as comfortable as I can." He waves at the door to the intensive care unit. "He's asking to see you, and if you'll excuse me for sounding callous I have to go work on the patients I _can_ save!" He storms off behind a curtain wall, yanks off his smock and starts scrubbing his hands, barking orders to Dr. Maela and the nurses.

I head into the ICU, where a nurse and Chief Corpsman Watkins are standing over Jerrod's form. His face is ashen, his eyes milky, and bandages flecked with bloodstains shroud his left arm and his neck. "Eleya?" he wheezes, his voice tremulous. "Is that you? I… I can't see."

I take his good hand. "Yes, it's me. Don't talk."

"You came through. You always do." He coughs hard and the nurse, a pale Hathoni Bajoran, wipes blood off his mouth with a tissue. She gently presses a hypospray to his neck and it hisses; the coughing fit subsides. "Last month… would've been our eighth anniversary." He coughs again. "Reshek, you there?"

"I'm here."

"You break her heart like… like I did, and… I'll come back."

"Would you _stop_ trying to _talk_?" I beg him.

"Eleya? Come closer?" I lean my head in. "Somebody on this ship… must have… activated it… intentionally," he wheezes. "Someone must have… been planning it all… with the Romulans." He coughs again. "I thought… I could trust… all of my crewmates… but I can't trust…. any of them. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I love you. I never stopped… loving…"

His hand falls limp in mine. "No. No, no."

But his chest has stopped moving, and the lifesign monitor is sounding a constant tone. Watkins reaches over and presses Jerrod's sightless eyes closed with one gloved hand. "Time of death, 0737 hours and eight seconds. I'm sorry, Captain."

I collapse across him and Gaarra grips my shoulder as the death chant drops unbidden from my lips, my voice breaking. " _Ahn-kay ya, ay-ya vasu. Coh-ma-ra, di-nay-ya. Ahn-kay ya…_ "

* * *

I stand there in a haze for hours. I barely notice Warragul giving me a massive dose of radiation treatments and warning me of possible side-effects, cancer risk, infertility. It feels like someone else entirely is sweeping the asteroid field for clues, like I'm a spectator in my own body. My answers to Admiral M'Rann's interrogation are sullen and robotic.

I'm trying to drown my sorrows in a bottle of Romulan ale (ha ha, I'm not laughing) when Captain Merkell walks up. "There any of that left?"

"Help yourshelf."

"Sounds like you're three sheets to the wind already," the Bolian comments.

I look blearily over at the bottle. It was a party-size bottle when I started but there's barely two fingers of ale left in it. "Takesh a lot to get me good and drunk these daysh. Uh, shorry for your losh, ahem, Captain."

"I should be saying that to you. Seems like you really loved him."

"I've sheen sho much death, losht sho many friendsh. Why _him_? I thought I hated him. Thish wash eashier when I hated him. Damn you to Hell, Jerrod Dalton…"

"He's the one that got away. I had one of those once."

"Yeah? Where ish he?"

She chuckles. "She's writing holoprograms on the south continent with three husbands and seven kids. Sometimes I think she was the smart one." She takes a drink of the azure brew in her glass, then asks me, "I don't mean to pry, but… he never said anything about his religious beliefs and there's nothing in his file. Do you happen to know—"

From somewhere in my ethanol-fuzzed, grief-hazed mind I dredge up a memory, one of several spirited discussions about religion and politics that always ended in bed-battering make-up sex. "He was a lapsed Lutheran when I… knew him. I think…" I cough and swallow. "I think the ordinary shecular funeral would be best."

Merkell nods. "Alright, then." She taps her combadge. "Commander Reshek, it's Captain Merkell. I need you to drop what you're doing and come to Ten Forward."

"Already here," he announces from the doorway. "Mr. Lang commed me before you did."

" _Phekk_ you," I grumble at him. "I'm all right."

"No, you're not." He takes the beer stein out of my hand; I only half-heartedly fight him as he raises me to my feet. "And you're cut off."

"Get her some sleep, get her sober," Merkell murmurs as I continue to grumble against his shoulder.

"This isn't my first jaunt around the sector, sir."

* * *

The remaining members of Merkell's crew stand, or sit in wheelchairs, in a half-circle on the forward observation deck of Admiral M'Rann's flagship USS _Arcadia_. Four hours of shut-eye and a detox pill means my hangover has receded to a dull twinge as I look over the tidy flag-draped torpedo casing.

"We are assembled here today to pay our respects to our honored dead," Merkell begins. "Each of them leaves an absence that can never truly be filled. But with Commander Jerrod Dalton, I think it may be harder.

"There are few people in our lives that burn with such passion, who can see so far ahead, that we burn brighter, we see farther, just for being in their company. Jerrod Dalton was one such man. Someday he may be remembered amongst such peers as Joris Brock and Zefram Cochrane. And someday the insights he had into the folds of time and space may change how we sail the stars."

She looks at the casket. "But today we can only pause and mourn the passing of our colleague and friend. As per his wishes we commit Jerrod Dalton's remains to space. It is fitting he will rest here, a displaced soul amongst the asteroids displaced by his vision." She looks up. "Do any of you have any thoughts to add?

I step forward. "I'd like to say a few words, Captain." Merkell nods and yields the floor as I marshal my thoughts.

Finally I sigh. "Eleven years ago I was stationed aboard RBS _Kira Nerys_. I was an E-5, naval gunnery technician. We were ambushed by an Orion frigate and boarded, and I learned something." My voice takes on a bitter tone. "I'm a killer. No matter what words you use to dress it up, no matter what uniform you put me in, what I am doesn't change: I'm a professional killer. I'm not proud of it, but it's what I'm good at, and I accepted that a long time ago. And to the best of my knowledge I've never taken an innocent life—everyone I've killed had a weapon in hand or was going to hurt someone else. But… removing evil from the world isn't the same thing as creating good.

"That's what Commander Dalton wanted to do. He was trying to leave this world a better place than people like me make it, and he believed in that with a passion few of us ever attain. And I… I loved that about him. And when he left me, I hated him for taking that from me. I hated him for a long time." I swallow. "I think I understand, though. If the price of sharing his passion with others was a period of pain, then I think it was a fair trade.

"It feels like the Prophets are torturing me, to have him disappear out of my life just after he returned to it. But I have to remind myself that, really, I'm lucky to have had those few minutes with him. I hope we can all remember not how much we miss him, but how much greater we are for having been close to him." I pull a stargazer lily from behind my back and lay it on the business end of the torpedo. He gave me one as a corsage before the Academy Yule Ball. "Prophets guide you to your rest, my friend. And thank you for bringing me back into your life… just in time."

Captain Merkell steps forward again. "Then we now commit the remains of Jerrod Dalton to the universe. From whence we come, so do we return. Captain, I yield this duty to you."

I lay my hand on a control panel. Blue sparks wash over the coffin and it fades from existence, lost to the stars.

Captain Merkell says to me, "I wish you well, Captain Kanril. Perhaps our paths will cross again under happier circustances."

"Walk with the Prophets, Captain Merkell."

* * *

Back to _Bajor_. Back to the war. There's always the war, the endless struggle for one more stupid chunk of rock in one more stupid sector, the killing, the dying, the laughter of thirsting gods. But orders are orders. We're carrying a full division of Marines belowdecks and we're already four days behind schedule thanks to this little excursion.

"Captain," Biri says to me quietly as we resume course to the Jouret system, "somehow it feels we're leaving here with unfinished business."

"I agree. But I also have to agree with Admiral M'Rann's logic, I'm no good to him as an investigator, not here."

"We're with you, Captain," Tess says, "whatever you decide. Um, if you need a rest, I can handle things up here."

"I appreciate it, Tess. You have the conn."

"I have the conn."

Gaarra follows me to the turbolift. "Are _we_ okay? Should I sleep in my own quarters for a little while?" I know he's joking. I look up at him and mumble something, just noise, I don't even know what I'm saying. But he takes me in his arms and holds me tight. "I guess not."

"I love you," I whisper to him. "Don't ever leave me."

"I love you. I won't."


End file.
